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UK Games Tax relief greenlit with Commission until 2023

The European Commission have confirmed that the tax relief for the production of video games in the UK has been re-notified until at least 2023.

Notification is required according to the EU State Aid laws to ensure that any measures introduced to support businesses are not anti-competitive in Member States.

This is fantastic news providing some much-needed confidence to the UK games sector and maintaining a key competitive advantage for UK based studios.

The Video Games Tax Relief has provided a real boost to the UK games sector and the UK’s economy since it was originally launched in 2014. Latest figures show that in Q1-Q3 2017, 161 video games received final certification with an UK/EEA spend of £137 million and a total budget of £160 million.

All tax reliefs operating in the European Union are subject to a renotification process to ensure that they are delivering their objectives and compliant with State Aid rules. We have been working closely with UK government on renotification and shall continue to ensure the UK tax relief scheme remains and is reviewed to ensure its competitiveness compared to other systems, beyond the UK leaving the European Union.

We are also working closely with the BFI research team on the economic impact assessment of the tax reliefs across the screen sectors in the UK to understand their benefit to the economy as a whole, in terms of jobs, economic spill overs and more. This is an important report which is done every two years and we expect to see it published soon.

Having confirmation that the VGTR can continue to operate until at least 2023 is fantastic news, and we very much welcome the UK government’s ongoing support for the sector. We look forward to continuing to representing the sector, calling on government to introduce further measures that will help grow the UK’s games industry, particularly around continued access to highly skilled talent post- Brexit.